Mazda Safety Notice

6 August, 1997

What's wrong with this
picture?

I
received a letter from Mazda yesterday about the "occupant
protection system". This letter praises the air bag as an
"effective supplemental safety device" which has been
"credited with saving more than 1,600 lives." In the
very same paragraph, the letter goes on to warn how an
"improperly positioned or improperly belted driver can be
seriously injured or even killed during air bag deployment."

Killed?!? This is a federally mandated
safety device designed to keep people alive. Yet this safety
device can kill us? And Mazda's answer is to provide another
safety device in the form of a sticker warning us about the
dangers of the safety device. What's wrong with this picture?

1,600 lives saved over the 10 year period
that airbags have been around. Compared to the billions of
vehicle miles traveled over that period, it would seem the odds
of being saved by this deadly "safety device" are
pretty slim. If the same amount of time and money were spent on
mandating driving school for all licensed drivers, the number of
lives saved would probably be orders of magnitude higher than a
measly 160 per year.

It should be clear from recent news reports
(and confirmed by this safety campaign) that the air bag may not
be all it's cracked up to be. Yet the bureaucrats responsible for
protecting those-too-stupid-to-protect-themselves will not allow
the automakers latitude in disabling the air bags on their
customers' vehicles. Why can't they simply admit that they may
have made an error and allow people to decide on their own
destiny? This is no longer a case of protecting people in the
interest of public safety. It's now a public relations project to
prevent lawsuits while still placating the air bag proponents.

While the federal bureaucrats in Washington
fight it out with the automakers, the insurance companies, and
the lawyers, this author has decided to take an active step in
preparing for his own personal safety. I've decided to remove the
airbag from my 1990 Mazda MX-5 and replace it with a nicer, more
comfortable, non-airbagged steering wheel which just might
improve my driving. I feel safer as a result.

Gary Fischman
Editor, Miata.net

Few things we've written have generated as much debate as
this editorial. Here are a couple of opinions we received in
response.

Dear Gary

For once I am glad to see someone look at air bags for
what they really are, a highly explosive device placed in
front of a unknowing victom. For example, look at the Miata
for this month. Unknowst to the driver of this car she is
placed too far forward to be safe if the airbag is deploed.
she should be sitting farther back, her arms should be
slightly bent while grasping the stearing wheel. How many pro
racing drivers do you see sitting this close to a stearing
wheel in the first place. I watched the Senate hearings on
this matter. Every us auto manufature who testified said that
the air bags are too strong. Ford produces an air bag which
deploys at a slower rate reducing the dangerous effects of
air bag. I for one would like to deactivate my air bag but
can't because that choice has been removed from me by federal
law. Air bags should be options, not manditory.

Michael Atwood

Dear Gary

Airbags, when are they safe/dangerous ???

The airbag is safe... as long as you watch some details:

- always use seat belts: if you don't your whole body is
projected to the front when in an accident. Thus your head is
positioned higher than the inflated airbag and your pretty
face hits the windscreen. Not nice to happen to one person as
the result can be a skull fracture and most probably the need
for major plastic surgery.

- when preparing an accident - the moment just before the
accident happens and you hit the brakes, turn the wheel...
always remember that the car manufacturer designed the airbag
to be most efficient when hitting an object in a right angle.
That's why the airbag is in front of the driver (and
passenger). Imagine you hit an object from a slightly
different angle then your body swings forward but to either
the left of the right and the 'rescue' effect is minimalised.
This won't kill you but won't safe you either, your body just
'glides' of the sides of the airbag.

- never put an object, eg. a small child or a rear-facing
child seat, in the inflation path of the airbag. Why? This
one needs some more explaining... Because the airbag really
'explodes' using a charge of compressed air and this
explosion has 2 distinct moments:

primo- the 'big bang' where the bag is under pression
to come out the cover and has to be filled to a certain
volume

secondo- the surplus of the compressed air keeps the
airbag under a (very) gentle pression for a few
milliseconds.

After all compressed air is used up and the bag deflates
via air escape holes. An airbag is not a balloon that keeps
floating on your steering wheel - it just breaks the forward
fall you make towards the steering wheel. But this process is
done is just a few seconds - the initial explosion just
requires a few milliseconds but.....

Remember I said that you should always wear seat belts? If
you don't you fly 'uncontrolled' forwards before the airbag
had time to reach its ideal volume and the airbag could still
be under the force of explosion when your body is making
contact. Result? the airbag could well push you backwards
into you seat giving it a certain trampoline effect.

This could eventually give you tremendous headaches
following the whiplash you experienced. By the way, whip lash
occurs mostly when a car drives into your rear and your head
flings backwards. If you hit another car in front of you make
a dive forward but above described push can give you the best
(or is that worst) of the frontal- and rear collision. Of
course, you were so bloody stupid not to wear your seat belt
in the first place.

This is where I consider children, alone or being seated
in a rear-facing child seat, dangerous to themselfs as to
other people. Either they are toying with the seat-belts or
are already to close to the inflation path of the bag when
seated in a rear-facing seat. The result will be what I
called the 'trampoline' effect. That airbag keeps pushing
until it has reached it's ideal volume.

Before everyone starts talking hell about exploding
airbags please let me remind you that they were designed to
do so. Can you imagine going through a collision which last a
few seconds upon impact and the airbag taking minutes to blow
up?? NO, it wouldn't work but and I just want to say it was
designed to work at its best complying to certain rules.

Car manufacturers have regulations - known as safety
regulations - to play along when designing the car. These
regulations deal with deformable areas to absorb the impact,
safety glass frontscreen, seat belts etc. It all comes down
to protect the occupants when hitting an object at a certain
speed. Now have those regulations always considered this
should be tested by crashing a testcar straight ahead - so
frontal, keep that in mind for a moment - into a wall or
prepared structure.

So those ingeneers went to their computer, worked out some
devices and went on to test them but always by pushing a
testcar frontal into a wall. From the moment you hit an
object from a different angle than the obligatory right angle
the engineers can give no warranty what's so ever on the
effect of the airbag. I guess the main reason why all the
safety devices just or slighty better the regulations is the
cost of research.

Plus the airbag is designed to work with the seat belt. In
a collision the seat belt is slowing down the driver or front
seat passenger while the airbag catches the 'fall'. With no
seat belt your body is flung forward with a much greater
force and in a wrong way as your chest will hit the steering
wheel and your head cracks the screen. With a seat belt your
upper body flips down while your hips should be locked in
your seat.

And guess what? The seatbelt too is designed to conform to
those same regulations and assumes that a grown-up person is
taking the seat. Kids offen hate to use the seat belt because
it is literally choking them. A seat belt was not designed to
hold a rear-facing child seat but the other way around.

In fact the origin of the airbag lies in the fact that a
lot of accidents ended deadly even when seat belts were worn.
Sometimes the seat belt itself blocked the upper body that
much that broken ribs were possible. The airbag resolves this
by braking the fall of the forward tilting upperbody thus
protecting the person. Car manufacturers, like Renault who
pioneered this one, are now also implementing active seat
belts. These act upon impact by blockking the lower part of
the seat belt to restrain the movement of the lowerbody and
the upper part of seat belt is built to slow the movement of
the upper body. Result is that the tilting movement is
ensured whereby the upper body is slowed down. Renaul claims
this system can be as efficient as an airbag. Public opinion
however demands (more) safety and this new system is likely
to used together with other devices like airbags, side impact
protection systems (Volvo), BMW's new protections to prevent
the head hitting the door with a collision from the side,
....

Conclusion of it all:

Have faith in the designed safety measures but keep in
mind that the designs were made to comply to obligatory
safety tests at that time. The moment you are in a situation
different from the safety tests there can be no warranty
about the outcome. Maybe you lucky, maybe you screwed up
yourself by cheating and not wearing a seat belt for
instance.

Just think of this: a car doesn't kill, it's the way it's
being used and you can't always control everything nor can
the car manufacturer.

Oh, only one question should rise in your attentive brain
after reading all of the above: How can an airbag kill
someone if he/she did act along the safety rules?
Answer: it wasn't the airbag but other factors influenced the
outcome in bad way.

Note: there was a safety test done around april 1997 by a
european consumer organisation in which 10 small cars took
part. These cars were of the small category (VW Polo, Renault
Clio, Ford Fiesta, Mazda 121, Rover 100, ...) and were bought
via the normal dealer channel. The cars were pushed against a
massive block but were to hit it on the right front.

The results were devastating and only a few cars made a
decent impression of their safety features. Most interesting
thing - related to airbags in general - was however the
movement of the testdummies in the crash. The videos showed
the car being hit not 100% frontal but 50% frontal
(right-hand side of car) and the dummies made a slightly
right movement. Thus they didn't got the full effect of the
airbag as they 'glided' to the right of the airbag. Still it
helped a little bit and the dummies were killed :). Anyway,
it showed that be 100% effective you would need an airbag the
size of the whole dashboard.

PS. please use proper child seats, in preference rear seat
models to strap your children safely. In a car crash
everything, including children, are projected forwards and
without a seat and seat belt your kid could fly through the
windshield or in your back representing a huge force. I don't
know what to prefer of the two but strapping the kid in the
back seat is the safest - for the kid and other passengers.

Let me first say how much I enjoy the miata net. I
recently purchased a 1994 M edition and have used the net to
learn about and purchase a variety of aftermarket
accesories--front bug screen, sway bars, new tires, tsi, jr
cold air induction, new shocks, new exhaust, arm rest pad,
cup holder, horn bumps, leather shift boot, leather brake
lever boot, car cover, plastic window cleaner and polish,
mazda club membership, MOSS WOOD STEERING WHEEL and matching
shift knob and brake handle. That being said I find your
editorial on air bags to reflect a lack of clear thinking on
this issue. But hey this is a free country and you can be as
right wing on any and all issues as you want to be. I just
hope you don't carry a loaded unlicensed hand gun in you
miata glove compartment.

I possibly owe my life to a Mazda airbag. And driving
skills had nothing to do with my accident. I walked away with
only a minor abrasion to the skin of my nose. My wife's Miata
(a 1990) was totaled. I was driving alone on a long trip. If
I had a passenger, he/she would have been seriously injured
because the 1990 had no passenger side airbag. We bought a
1994 because both seats have airbags. Gee, I want two and you
want none-what a country.

Your arguments about the benefits (only 160 lives saved)
are specious, at best). My accident (because it did not
involve another vehicle) as well as many others are not
reported anywhere. How many other lives have Mazda airbags
saved? How many serious injuries have Mazda airbags avoided?

While you must have the seat belt fastened--no one should
drive a car like the Miata without buckeling up. Second, the
Miata is not a todler transport mobile. As you know, there is
no back seat and infants etc should only be transported in an
approved child seat securely fastened to the rear seat.

I'm sure you believe that your new racing wheel without an
airbag will give you the safety edge over your old wheel with
a bag. Maybe a turbo should be mandatory safety gear as
wheel--you know you can more safely pull out onto the
freeway. Maybe on the weight of the logic in your editorial
someone will nominate you for a Mensa membership. Maybe the
Red Sox will win the world series this year.

I choose my MOSS wheel because it preserved the bag
function and it really looks nice. The reason I am being
somewhat ofensive here is that your editorial offends me. At
least I intended my offense.

I hope for your sake and the well being of the miata net,
that you do not need the bag someday. A lot of people have
needed it and are glad that the Federal Government mandated
its installation.

Mark Haflich

We reply:

The statistics quoted above aren't our
stats - they're a quote from the letter received from Mazda and
which, by the way, were also stated on the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration's web site. They are the ones who
published the figures.

Bottom line for us is, we would be
happy if the government would simply allow people to make an
informed decision regarding the airbags. Instead, the government
is mandating that people sit
in front of a device which they admit can be dangerous. We can't
think of any other safety device or prophylactic device
(including vaccine's) which are mandated and the person exposed
to the potential danger is not permitted to choose not to
participate.

I'm sure if we searched long and hard enough we could find
many examples of federally mandated safety requirements that have
caused or contributed to fatalities. I'm actually fairly certain
it would not take a lot of effort to produce these statistics,
or, in the worst case, *produce* them. Seat belts would be a good
example. I am certain there have been wrecks where a jammed
seat-belt has contributed to a fatal accident. Common sense shows
that the merits of the seat belt far outweigh the dangers that
they may present in certain situations. Helmets for motorcycles
would be another good example. Motorcycle riders claim that
helmets reduce their visibility and hearing, and can contribute
to accidents. This may be the case. But the positive returns of
wearing a helmet when travelling on a two wheeled, motor driven
vehicle can not be overstated. If your skull hits the pavement at
60 mph and you don't have a helmet, you're in trouble. I'd go on
to say that I trust that we could find other examples of
federally mandated safety equipment that has caused deaths
outside the realm of personal transportation. I believe in
freedom of choice and the freedom from excessive government
regulation of individual and personal choices. I also think this
promotes survival of the mentally fittest, as the low end of the
I.Q. pool learns about the process of natural selection the hard
way. But, for all my strong conservative reservations about
things of this nature, I am middle of the road enough to realize
that all the feds are saying is that "manufacturers *must*
provide cars that meet federal safety requirements which we think
are best served by passive restrain systems, supplemental
restrain systems, crumple zones, etc. etc.". I want them
pressuring manufacturers in this way. Have you ever been overseas
or to a second or third world country and seen the vehicles over
there? Today cars are better, safer, more efficient than ever
before, and it is because of federal regulations saying that they
must be as much as for market demand. I believe in a free market
economy and it's ability to govern itself to a certain extent.
But, as part of the process of a free market economy I feel that
I am a more demanding consumer than the average, and I don't want
to have to either a:Pay more or b:Settle for less, just because
the average consumer is a moron willing to drive around in a tin
can death-trap that they paid $15,000 for. I feel strongly that
the far right that would abolish government regulation on all
levels is just as dangerous, reactionary and likely to be wrong
as the liberal left is. The big difference in my mind is that too
*little* government is still a better option than *too much*
government in most cases.

But, look at this with an open mind, from a critical
perspective, and apply other similar situations to this scenario.
Are seat belt laws a good idea or a bad idea? Remember all the
fuss about people fearing being trapped in a burning, overturned
or submerged vehicle? How often does this happen compared to how
many lives seat belts save? Isn't the airbag a similar situation?
Unless you are under 5'4" or 115 pounds, I cannot understand
your irrational fear of a device that statistically is much,
much, *much* more likely to save your life than to take it.